Helsinki’s startup scene evolved around behemoths such as Nokia, games giant Supercell and food delivery platform Wolt. It’s reaping the rewards with experienced entrepreneurs, investors and engineers powering a lively scene based around the Aalto University campus and the startup festival Slush, one of the world’s largest gatherings of investors and startups.

“We appreciate work-life balance and collaboration,” explains Jonne Kuittinen, deputy chief executive of the Finnish Venture Capital Association. “The Supercell guys were very open about paying all their taxes in Finland and this giving back mentality is visible now these founders are helping out on a lot of the current funding rounds. I think the scene is about to be turbocharged.”

The country’s low unemployment has meant coders have been hard to find, says Claes Mikko Nilsen, principal at VC Nordic Ninja, but a receptive government launching a fast track D visa in 2022 has boosted international recruitment. The next step? Larger funds for late-stage investments.

Paebbl

“Concrete is the most consumed product on the planet after water, and that’s not slowing down,” says Paebbl co-CEO Andreas Saari. Concrete’s main ingredient, cement, is the source of 8 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Paebbl flips this, using rock weathering, or mineralization, to turn carbon dioxide into stone. Carbon captured at industrial sites is mixed with water and ground silicate to produce a solid carbonate-based material using a technique developed by Paebbl CTO Pol Knops. Paebbl founders Jane Walerud, Marta Sjögren, ex-Slush CEO Saari and Knops raised €8 million ($8.9 million) in seed funding from climate tech VC Pale Blue Dot, French investor 2050, the Grantham Foundation and several angels in October 2022. In May 2024 the pilot reactor sequestered its first ton of CO2. A demonstration plant comes online later this year, and the stone will be deployed in the field in spring. Next up—selecting sites and partners for four commercial scale plants, operational by 2030. paebbl.com

Distance Technologies

Distance Technologies has developed a prototype mixed-reality version of a military pilot’s heads-up display (HUD) that works like a glasses-free 3D monitor. An LCD panel projects 3D images onto transparent surfaces, such as a car windscreen treated with a reflective coating. The company is discussing applications from detailed 3D topographic maps projected onto cockpit windscreens for pilots and night vision footage of the road ahead for drivers. The prototype is fitted with a hand tracker, so users can interact with the screen hands-free. Founded in 2023 by co-founders Jussi Mäkinen and Urho Konttori, who met at Helsinki-based mixed reality headset company Varjo, it raised $2.7 million (£2.04 million) in a pre-seed round led by FOV Ventures and Maki.vc, with Business Finland and David Helgason’s Foobar.vc. Discussions are now underway with car, aerospace and defense companies. distance.tech

Steady Energy

Steady Energy began in the state-owned Technical Research Centre of Finland when founder, CEO Tommi Nyman and co-founder Hannes Haapalahti decided to commercialize the center’s low temperature nuclear reactor, the LDR-50. Most existing nuclear reactors operate at around 300°C, superheating steam to drive heavy turbines. The modular LDR-50 operates at between 65°C and 120°C and heats water directly. This will be pumped around district heating networks, providing neighborhood systems with warm water from a central power station carried through insulated pipes to heat houses. These networks have long been popular in Scandinavia and the USA, and are spreading to other European countries thanks to last year’s EU directive expanding their use. Having raised €15 million ($16.7 million) from Lifeline Ventures, Yes VC, and Reid Hoffman’s Aphorism Foundation, Steady Energy has preliminary agreements for 15 reactors with utility companies Helen and Kuopion Energy. Construction is expected to start by 2028, with operation beginning in 2030. steadyenergy.com

Skyfora

Skyfora is developing state-of-the-art instruments to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts. The company offers three different meteorological probes called StreamSondes—ultralight atmospheric transmitters that hurricane hunters drop in the path of storms. The company is also adapting satellite receivers in telecom base stations into a network of weather scanners, which can analyze water vapor, temperature and air pressure. CEO Fredrik Borgström, CTO Kim Kaisti and co-founder Antti Pasila raised €5 million ($5.5 million) in four funding rounds from Icebreaker.vc, Voima Ventures and other business angels. The company’s StreamSonde was deployed in July’s Hurricane Beryl and Skyfora is now working with telecom operators to set up proof-of-concept pilot towers. skyfora.com

Enifer

Back in the 1970s, the Finnish paper industry used fungus to treat wastewater and sold the resulting mycoprotein as animal feed. The technique died with the industry, but Simo Ellilä, Heikki Keskitalo, Joosu Kuivanen, Ville Pihlajaniemi and Anssi Rantasalo repurposed it. Together, they founded Enifer in April 2020 to develop food grade mycoprotein by upcycling waste liquid from food, agriculture and forestry. A €15 million ($16.7 million) series B round in April brings total funding to €27m ($30.2 million) from Taaleri Bioindustry I fund, Nordic Food Tech VC, Voima Ventures and others. Factory construction started in May, aiming to reach industrial scale by 2025, with new sites on the way. enifer.com

ReOrbit

ReOrbit is pioneering “software-enabled satellites”, a distributed network of secure satellites that act like an Internet of Things in space. Satellite manufacture hasn’t changed for 40 years, explains Sethu Saveda Suvanam, CEO and founder, because they can only talk directly to Earth. Suvanam is fixing that by building “flying routers”, which allow, for instance, military satellites to send images of Russian ships to the coastguard through space at high-speed, accelerating warnings. A busy €7.4 million ($8.2 million) seed round in September 2023 will fund an in-orbit demonstration satellite, scheduled for launch in 2025. reorbit.space

Realm

Founders Miika Huttunen and Mikko Mäntylä met at Slush, a company with a high staff turnover, which led to lost documentation and a lack of “corporate memory”. With former Stripe engineer Johan Jern, they created a large language model AI that can search every digital document an organization has ever created to provide answers to, for instance, sales reps questions about previous deals. Launched in April 2023, its first funding pre-seed round of €1.7 million was led by Lifeline Ventures with angels including Helsinki founders from Zalando and Supercell. The company is now working with procurement analytics leader Sievo, games company Remedy Entertainment, and EV charging provider Virta. withrealm.com

Bob W

Short for “Best of Both Worlds”, the company operates 36 full-service aparthotels in 17 cities across Europe. The company uses a digital front desk run by chatbot Bob W that handles check in and out as well as booking breakfast spots and gyms. The system also informs guests of their carbon dioxide emissions for each choice made. Founded in 2018 by Niko Karstikko and Sebastian Emberger, the company has raised €70 million ($78.3 million). The most recent round, in March, saw €40 million ($44.7 million) raised by Wise’s founder Taavet Hinrikus and Supercell’s co-founder Mikko Kodisoja. The money funds an ambitious acquisition policy, buying 20 to 25 buildings across Europe and converting them into 1,500 to 2,000 aparthotel rooms. bobw.co

Swarmia

Swarmia is a software engineering effectiveness platform designed to make it easier for software teams to communicate, set goals and measure productivity. Key to this is the software connecting other platforms such as GitHub, Jira/Linear, and Slack, creating “working agreements”—agreed guidelines for managers and teams on how they plan to work together. These include targets, how they’ll be met, and how the results will be measured. Founder Otto Hilska was previously chief product officer at Smartly.io. He’s raised €13.8 million ($15.4 million) over three rounds, most recently with Dig Ventures, and is expanding in the US. Swarmia is currently serving more than 1,500 companies including WeTransfer, Hostaway and Axios HQ, while its future plans include reducing the size of the free plan to boost revenues. swarmia.com

Noice

Noice is all about the metagame. The live streaming gaming platform allows viewers to gamble on outcomes in games that they’re watching using digital cards. These might predict, for instance, that the next kill in a game of Fortnite will involve a shotgun. Each correct card picked wins points, and they can be bought or earned by watching ads. Founded in 2020, the company has raised a total of €25 million across two funding rounds, backed by local entrepreneurs including the co-founders of Supercell and the co-founders of Wolt. Noice co-founders CEO Jussi Laakkonen, and CTO Jaakko Lukkari met at Applifier, the Finnish company that helped developers create in-game replay, before Unity acquired the company. The company is still in beta testing with a full launch later this year. noice.com

This article first appeared in the November/December 2024 edition of WIRED UK.